From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Bauchi State Chapter has dispelled rumors that it has pulled out of the ongoing ASUP strike, describing it as false and mere speculation.
The Chairman ASUP, Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, Aliyu Abdullahi who stated this in an interview with news men at the weekend in Bauchi said that most of the polytechnics that were pulling out of the strike are owned by the state governments under the leadership of unqualified rectors who intimidate their staff not to embark on strike.
The chairman said that the union was not insensitive towards the plights of the students, adding that the struggle was in their interest and the entire polytechnic institutions across the country.
According to him, “It is the sensitivity to the plights of the students that made ASUP to demand for the needs assessment, where the federal government will go to all the polytechnics and identify their peculiar needs so that the system will be sanitised.
“Apart from the issue of the needs assessments, it is also the sensitivity to the plights of the students that made the lecturers to demand for a polytechnic commission so that there will be a better policy formulation for effective running of the polytechnics”.
He said, ASUP is not a strike monger union who capitalises at the slightest advantage to disrupt academic activities, stressing that the federal government lacks sincerity in honouring its part of the agreement it entered with the union since 2009.
“I can recall vividly that the last time ASUP embarked on strike is more than a decade and it does not mean that within the tens or more, there have not been problems within the sector, but we feel consultation is the way out”.
He opined that ASUP can make the sacrifices of calling off the strike if the government was sincere with the union, “but unfortunately the government has not shown any tangible commitment to the sector and that made the situation to further deteriorate” he said.
